Various & Sundry Light, Historical, & "Cozy" Mysteries
★ ★ ★
1932: Amory broke her engagement to Gil in order to marry the well known playboy, Milo.
Milo has just returned from Monte Carlo, when Gil visits & asks Amory to accompany him to the seaside resort of Brightwell in order to convince his sister Emmaline not to marry her Playboy fiancee Rupert....
Gil is overheard arguing w/ Rupert and the next day Amory finds Rupert dead, pushed over the terrace.
In the mean time Milo shows up, complicating matters; Gil is arrested for Ruperts murder; a wife is drugged & her husband is drown in his bath while Amory & Milo are hiding in his closet; Amory's aspirins are switched w/ sleeping tablets; a gauche femme fatale makes for Milo; and a young woman attempts suicide....
Fast paced, interesting w/ romantic tension and fashion description....
★ ★ ★ ★
The mysterious death of an art gallery owner follows the unearthing of the skeletal remains of the missing collage artist whose work is about to be shown at the Tate. The next discovered body is that of the Gallery's restorer.....
An attempted murder of a publisher/editor who accidentally discovers that the publisher's colophon (logo on the spine of a bookcover) used in one of the collages could not possibly have been from when the artist was alive.....
Very interesting once I got into the story... I liked the characters, I liked the story, I liked the art world & publishing details...
I did take exception to the following: "One area I'd like to explore is the future of reproductions in books. Given the spread of images online, and the cost of printing, the question, why illustrate book s at all, is an obvious one. If the author can say, 'Vermeer's Music Lesson', and the reader can look at it online, spending money printing it, or spending money paying a permission fee to the owner of the picture, is surely becoming pointless. Just what is the future of this kind of publishing?"
Personally, I borrow, peruse, & purchase Art Books for the Color Art Illustrations..... I am not going to bother w/ any type of book that points me to a web page in order to view the illustrations..... Why would I (or for that matter anyone else) want to stop in the middle of what I am reading, put down the book, go to the pc, turn it on, and search images to find what I was reading about?
Eye-Roll!
★ ★ ★★
I know I've read this book before.... but I reread it, as I obviously didn't remember too much about it.
Madeline Bean has just finished catering a huge charity in L.A. for a private music school.... One of her employees' car broke down, so she borrows Maddie's car to get home and Maddie hitches a ride w/ one of the event chairs.
During the event, Maddie comes across her neighbor, whose personal papers she found scattered across her yard... she approaches him in order to return them, he & his girlfriend fly into a rage, accusing her of stealing and trying to blackmail him.
The grand auction prize, a Selmer Mark VI in pristine condition being auctioned off, disappears after the auction... The winner (event chair's husband) goes into a rage and chases down his competitor bidder (w/ Madeline in tow).
Maddie convinces the driver to drop her off downtown.... as she is walking home, the driver's brother-in-law shows up to give her a ride home w/ apologies from his sister the event chair... They hit it off and go to eat at the pantry....
When they finally arrive at Maddie's home they find the police, ambulance, crime scene and the employee who borrowed Maddie's car murdered in Maddie's bed....
Romance, the soap of being a rich man's trophy wife, jealousy, murder, food/catering, house renovation, & insurance fraud play for a pretty interesting story....
Not by any means a "cozy", this book held my interest and I'll even read another.....
★ ★ ★
It would have been better without all the "I's".... I realize it was all a part of introduction to the character, her family, background, but it was too chatty for my taste..... so, minus 1 star.
The story once I skimmed past all of those wasted pages was fine, even interesting....
Excavating for for a new wine cellar on a Northern California commune a hidden room is uncovered. The inside the room is filled with exquisite antiques and a mummified body with a valise. In the valise is a rare book, inside the book is a treasure map that leads to a hidden room beyond the one where the body was found.
As it turns out, the treasure was that of a village in "safe-keeping" of a family that fled France as Nazi occupation began... When the other families arrived from France to settle & claim their valuables, the one with the knowledge had died and there was no hope of recovery.
With the opening of the buried rooms the local families have hope of regaining their heirlooms, but a murderer is terrorizing the commune.
★ ★ ★
1920: A young Maharajah Prince is visiting a stately country home for grouse season, his soon to be red-headed actress wife (from simple folk) is hidden away in a near by hotel until the astrologer can come up w/ an auspicious date for the nuptials.
After the young Prince goes out & kills the legendary local white doe he disappears and the English politicos send in Kate Shackleton (their secret sleuth) to find him.
While searching for the Prince one of the young men who was his guide is found dead in the river at a point where he would often jump across.... The father of the other guide (a young man of "simple" ways) has a stroke, and Kate finds the Prince in the place where he shot the doe, dead, shot in the chest & covered with branches.
The problem is, the area had already been searched and there was no sign of the Prince anywhere.... The local constable ignores the politicos, shuts Kate out of the inquest and commandeers the extra set of photos & negatives she took of the crime scene and makes sure the Prince's death is seen as a self-inflicted hunting accident..... But what no one wants to acknowledge is that on the day of the Prince's disappearance, rumor has, it that there was another Indian seen about town. Once it is announced that the Prince's body has been found, his entire family descends upon the town and embroils Kate in more attempted & successful murders; the Prince's fiancee is shunned and famous diamond the Prince had locked in the hotel's safe disappeared.
★
As I didn't like one of the main characters, Major Robert Kurland, I will not read another in this series.
The Major & Rector's daughter embark on investigating the murder of a nasty, manipulative, gossiping, blackmailing harridan.... Soon one of the suspects is also found dead from what appears to be an accidental overdose.
It was difficult to keep track of the characters as they were referred to back and forth by either their first name or Mr./Miss.... so it took a bit for me to figure this out...
There is no lack of rude, stupid, or ugly characters.... and I didn't give a fig what happened to any of them, including the Rector's daughter, whom is suppose to be the heroine of this series.
Waste of time.....
